


A Series of Events that made One Miss Figeroth Faeth wish to Break off Her Own Horns and Place them Roughly Within Her Own Infernally-Blackened Heart

by b10f3m4l3



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fig Gender Fic, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, I DIDNT SPELL HER NAME WRONG FIGEROTH IS BETTERRRR, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, T slur tw, its sfw dont worry just has triggering themes kjhghj
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26311480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b10f3m4l3/pseuds/b10f3m4l3
Summary: Figeroth Faeth has struggled with her body for a long time. Not just her body, her life, her experiences, her trauma. Every aspect of a rather painful experience, addled with drugs and father issues, has been bothering her for quite some time, and the accumulative effect leads her to staring at herself in the mirror on the eve of her best friends HRT-anniversary, entwined in pain, soon to receive some well-needed conversations
Relationships: Adaine Abernant/Zelda Donovan, Ayda Aguefort/Figueroth Faeth, Baron/Riz Gukgak, Ragh Barkrock/Gorgug Thistlespring
Comments: 3
Kudos: 31





	A Series of Events that made One Miss Figeroth Faeth wish to Break off Her Own Horns and Place them Roughly Within Her Own Infernally-Blackened Heart

**Author's Note:**

> SCREAM ITS HERE ITS FINALLY HEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE OMG OMG OMGGGGGG. THIS HAS BEEN.... HARD TO WRITE AND ID REALLLLLY RLY APPRECIATE KUDOS AND COMMENTS OMG <33333333 MWAH!!!!

Figeroth Faeth sat on her unmade bed in a dark, messy room, staring at her broken body in a dirty mirror. Cold dawn light splashed through a window, illuminating all the rough edges and sharp corners of her 6’2” frame. She looked so...torn. Tender. Sore. As if her skin was stripped away like bark off a tree, revealing the soft, tender wood underneath. She was what? Twenty? Twenty two? It was almost strange how she couldn’t remember. Rubbing her temples, she tried to recall even simple facts, but she couldn't, not even her age. Her breath caught in her throat like a rat in a trap, and a single tear oozed out of her eye.

All those years adventuring, pretending to be a type of woman she wasn’t. It left her mind...lacking, forgetful, like the girls down by the train station wearing faulty girdles of femininity and keeping themselves in spells by whoring themselves out to any bigwig who came by in a fancy car. Fig spent so long pretending to be someone else, dissociating herself from her own body, the woman she was, the woman she one day could be, had washed away. And with her she took Fig’s health. 

Disguise self came with physical limitations, improper use of the spell could harm the body. This was a warning that could’ve been useful a decade ago.

Since puberty, Figeroth had been using it almost constantly. _Just to cover a blemish,_ she said, magically zapping away the small chest hair that made her throat burn from sobbing. Just to make her a bit taller, her voice would ring out as she concealed the adams apple that she felt was a stone in her windpipe. As her horns forced through her forehead, her skin flushed strawberry pink, what she would focus her utter dread and throat-stopping fear on was the maroon hair on her belly, the flat ironboard of her chest, the rough stubble that pushed its way through the skin of her upper lip. If anything, her infernal heritage gave an escape from her masculinity, noone payed any attention to the glimmering of illusory magic that stealthed a plethora of secrets, when your eyes already glow with hellfire. But the spell's drawbacks made this hell. It started with spots. Ugly, red. Volcanoes on the dry desert of her face. Then her tattoos, fading like a haze of dragonspice. Intricate Zajiri script, "Pleasure" on one wrist, "Pain" on the other, obscured by scratches and scars, started to disappear into her sunset-red skin.

  
  


Next came the ...irritation. The exacerbation of her skin imperfections. After her zits exploded like geysers, all her scars paled and widened, like gashes opening in the earth. The numb, baby-pink tissue coiled around her forearms, her thighs, her shoulders, in stripes of white like rings of salt. The look made her insecure, nervous. She was afraid of wearing skirts and short sleeves, nowadays her beat-up leather jacket covered up skin up at all times.

As Fig traced her fingers along the edge of these white, stretched ridges on her skin, she thought about how so little of them came from battle, and instead were just a product of her own midnight thoughts and spirals. Songwriting sessions that became virulent self-hate sessions. This wasn’t new, of course, she had despised herself before she ever even sprouted horns from her head, but the pain blossomed at the same time her skin splashed with devilish red (and her shoulders grew, and her skin became rough, and her “dad” had walked out the door.). 

It would be assumed that Figeroth would have a sense of guilt or remorse over marring her body in such a way, but why did she care, it was already ruined forever. Physical changes didn’t matter anymore. Not after all the changes her body had put her through naturally. (oh it was always **_natural_ **. So fucking natural. Unlike fig, the cheering, sporty little boy who became the freak girl with fucking ivory daggers jutting out of her head. That was unnatural, everyone said so.)

Fig didn’t care. Why should she care after everything. She remembered the day she gave up all hope (probably one of the few things she remembered that wasn’t overt violence or yet another time she was shown the door). She walked, so brightly, so spritely (her 18th birthday! What fun!) into the doctor's office, uncomfortably crunched her tail into a chair. It was her day of medical emancipation. It was the day she got to decide to fix her own body. She giddily tapped her black boots against the white linoleum, so anticipatory. But as the doctor turned the corner, word-vomiting some nervous spiel about being late, and his brown, dwarven eyes met her devilish ones, he stopped in his tracks.

It had been months, years at that point, since Doctor Asha had learnt the terrible truth about the woman he’d been kissing. Since he had sneered at her, spat at her, looked in her apologetic face and told her that she’d regret the day he made him kiss a tranny. Asha, in his 4’5” stature, smugly grinned and shot indecipherable medical jargon at Fig like bullets from a gun, not even looking into her eyes but at her crumpled, distraught brow. Fig didn’t recognise most of it, but the words she did understand were scary. “arcane degradation”. “overwork”. “archdevil incompatibility”. “microdosing”. What was scarier was the glint in the good doctor’s eye. It was devious. Gleeful. He turned the pages of his medical manual like a prosecutor finding the worst possible sentence, in this case, a life condemnation. Fig sat, mouth agape and eyes wide with dread and shock, listening to him throw her life away. The sick pleasure in his voice crawled down her back. Her pointed ears shook, not with rage but with fear. 

The dwarf sadistically drawled over his notes, and Fig’s heart beat furiously in her chest. She could feel the fires of hell burning in her cheeks and time seemed to slow down as the dwarf came to his final conclusion.

“Well, Mr Faeth, I’m afraid you are just not at the correct level of physical nor mental health to receive transition procedures.” The doctor smiled, a gleaming, violent, angry smile. “But if you’d like, I could organise for you to spend some time in a ward.”

Figeroth couldn’t remember much of what she did next. Probably a lot of drugs. She knew from her mother that she came to her birthday party sobbing, and spent an hour borderline overdosing on dragonspice in the bathroom. She knew from a lawsuit that when Dr Asha touched her shoulder she broke his arm “like a toothpick”. She knew from Wretchrot’s account that she did _something_ to Vraz the Mean, which ended up almost doubling her hellish domain.

Normal things you do when your life is ruined. But as for real memory? Nada. Nil. Zero. Whatever recollections she could have had, burnt away in a haze of pills, incense and powders. And something else, Adaine called it "Dissociation". 

God. Adaine. Adaine didn't call much nowadays. God. Holy fucking shit, Fig missed Adaine. Fig missed all her friends really. It wasn’t like they were.. around. Zelda and Adaine moved in together in Bastion City, Riz was doing “Investigative journalism” with Baron in the red waste, Gorgug and Ragh were affluent Ashgrove High-flyers, and the less said about Kristen the better. Fabian still lived in Elmville, but that was more “base of operations for generational wealth” rather than a home. No one knew where Aelwyn was, something to do with “burning this whole gig down” and “fake punks don’t have the balls to kill a president”.

But they didn’t meet anymore, not like they used to. Even Fabian, when he invited Fig and Ayda around for a double date, or a dinner, or a condescending speech about how to max out rapidly-dying merch sales, was hypercritical of Fig’s appearance, slyly pointing out electrolysis scars and tapping her shoulders as if to say her womanhood was in danger due to the shape of her body (Much to Ayda’s worried confusion and Fig’s tired resigned sighs). 

Though, Fig shrugged, they were all going to meet up the coming night. Special events always brought them together for the odd fateful weekend, and boy this was a _special_ event. It was the birthday of Aelwyn and Adaine Abernant, who were not twins, but did share a birthday (despite being two years apart) and also… their joint hrt date. (28th of June, their parents started them on it on the same day. Not that Adaine’s prescription was always consistent.). The topic of hormone replacement therapy was obviously a sore topic for Fig, but she couldn't say she wasn’t happy for her friends, and this celebration of Adaine’s microdosing (Elven Purity Laws) and Aelwyn’s dangerous schemes of monotherapy (Not giving a shit) did give her an escape from the dreariness of her life. So she was sure she could handle it… Well, she assumed she could. Evidently, she couldn’t. (The evidence being the obvious spiral she was in at this very moment. fuck. **_fuck_ **)

Fig’s worked-up daze was broken by the scritch scratch of giant bird talons on the floor. 

“Figueroth?” said Ayda, cautiously, “Are you… okay?”

Ayda could see that Fig wasn’t okay. Such distress was a sight the half-pheonix often walked upon, so much so that she could note even the tiniest detail, from the tiny shakes and shivers in Fig's tensed shoulders, to how her sharp, infernally-blackened nails digged into her thighs leaving reddened marks that would stay for days. Ayda didn't really understand. I mean, she understood, but couldn't empathise, she hadn't gone through what Fig had. Known as a woman from birth, she and all others around her lived in complete assurance that she was "right", in a way that Figeroth had to fight for others to recognise, hide to protect from being targeted for. Ayda never considered her inexperience a reason to live in ignorance though. She was a scholar, and if her own girlfriend's feelings had to be the subject of her studies, then so be it. Ayda took tentative steps towards Fig, as tippy-toe as her giant bird feet would allow. 

She perched gently on the bed next to her lover, and wrapped an orange-tattooed arm around her shoulder.

"I'm here, Fig." 

Ayda leaned close, and planted a gentle kiss on Fig's cheek. Despite her softness, Fig still flinched as the bristles of stubble on her face (that she hadn't managed to burn off with the rest) poked deeper into her skin. 

Hues of orange, yellow, red lit up Fig’s face as she craned her head round to look into the swirling golden infernos that were Ayda's eyes. She reached up with a shaking red hand, bringing it to rest on her lover's cheek, gently stroking Ayda's soft skin with her thumb, an action Ayda mirrored carefully. As they sat there, in this quasi-embrace, the tears on Fig's cheek began to evaporate, small streams of steam radiating off her skin. Dissipating in the morning air.

Fig tried to speak. "I-". She stopped. She blinked. The low octave of her voice felt like glass in her throat. Hastily taking her hand off her wife's cheek, she stood up as if an explosion had erupted under her, her tail whipping around her feet. Her mouth opened and closed in desperate silence, trying to explain just _what_ exactly was wrong without using words. Without using her stupid, stupid fucking voice. Without yet another wave of shock and pain and fury and-

“ _I’m here, Fig.”_ Ayda’s message cantrip reverberated through Fig’s mind, cooling her panic slightly like ice to a fever. When words failed, Ayda was there. The little ray of sunshine inside her head.

“ _Ayda. I can’t speak. I-I need. I need something_ .” Fig messaged back, anxiously. She felt so… Inable. She couldn’t even speak to her own _girlfriend_ like a normal person.

" _Figeroth. It's alright.”_

_“But it isn’t, Ayda. I’m so tired of not being normal.”_

Ayda pondered this statement for a second, she -as someone who had long ago accepted the fact she was not normal, never will be normal, and should stop trying to be normal- felt… bad. Bad that her girlfriend of oh-so-many years felt unnormal. Bad that she couldn’t do anything about it. Bad that she was in the one situation her studies just couldn’t seem to help with. Just… bad. She brought her hand to brush against Fig’s gently, just an inkling of tender touch.

_“You are normal to me.”_

Fig’s mouth twitched upwards quickly, in a semi-smile, before returning to a worried frown. Ayda, though blunt, was...sweet. She often complained about her lack of flowery language clouding the amount of care in her speech, but Fig simply did not agree, she thought whatever Ayda said at a given moment was the most beautifully caring thing any woman had ever said. Though she was biased. They were in love, after all. 

_“Thank you. Thank you so so so much, Ayds… I- I don’t know how to-”_

A fiery smile beamed out of Ayda’s face, who was glad to see that what she said had cheered her lover up, if even for a split-second. 

_“I know, it’s okay. It’s always going to be okay.”_

Fig took a deep, slow, deliberate breath. Her hair bounced around her head as she gently shook herself loose, as if trying to dislodge the source of her depressive attitude. She wrapped her red-ochre hand around Ayda’s, and winced as she spoke.

“I… I need to take an afternoon.” Fig enunciated her words slowly and deliberately, trying to maintain a higher-than-normal tone, “In hell, please, if you wouldn’t mind...plane shifting.”

A conflicted look passed over Ayda’s face as she thought about this request, it wasn’t that she was afraid of how Fig would fare _in hell_ , at least not in terms of defending herself, she was an archdevil, and one of the most powerful bards that Spyre had ever seen, it was more that Fig didn’t fare well.. anywhere. Especially alone, Fig could raze through bottles of drink, packets of powder and arcane stimulants like a dragon could raze through bystanders. She was so adept at accidental benders that no anecdote of hers from the last 5 years _didn’t_ start with “So, one time, when I was high-”.

Ayda tapped her fingers against her thigh. 

“I will, but you have to promise one thing.” she said, looking into Fig’s red infernal eyes.

Fig looked at Ayda, her lip trembling. She took Ayda’s free hand in hers, and squeezed it slightly.

“Anything, Ayda”

Feeling a hand-squeeze in reply from Ayda, Fig leant forward and kissed Ayda gently on the lips, small sparks alighting from their met lips. Ayda broke her silence as whirling concentric circles of glowing embers, flame, twinkling orange hearths and runes (a portal of sorts, to hell of course) opened up behind Fig, overpowering every other light in the room and silhouetting her dear paramour.

“You have to promise to come back, before the party, sober…”

Roaring, screaming, the noises of hell filled the room, and nonexistent wind rustled Fig’s hair as she took Ayda by the chin and kissed her hard, in a way not unlike their first embrace. Ayda’s head of flame exploded with a sudden burst of passion, and Fig’s devilish tail wagged lovingly, before Fig started to take tentative steps backwards into the infernal gateway. As the portal's wild flames circled and licked around her sides, Fig winked at Ayda.

“I promise… I love you.” she said, waving as the fire started to overcome her.

“I love you t-” the portal consumed Fig, expanded wall-to-wall... and shrunk down to nothing with a resounding **pop** , cutting Ayda off, sucking all the light and heat out of the room, leaving it ice-cold and pitch-black, aside from Ayda’s natural glow. 

Ayda stood there, in the silent, dark, grey, grungy room, the air chilling her skin and emptiness hanging in the atmosphere like dust. A deep, lonely sigh escaped her lips, and she buried her face in her hands, small phoenix-ash tears dripping from her eyes, with no one there to wipe them away.


End file.
